How to stop annoying Spam Robocalls on your phone

Spam calls can be a nuisance and, in many cases, a threat. Once the robocall has been answered, the autodialer either plays a recorded message or connects the call to a live person. Some robocalls use personalized audio messages to simulate an actual personal phone call and may individually address the recipient by name. More than 50 billion robocalls were made in 2021.

Mobile spam calls have been a nuisance for years. Every waking day brings with it a new barrage. Robocallers have upped their game by masking their spam with local, genuine-looking phone numbers. It is an unwelcome distraction and a waste of time. It is all too easy for these scammers to wield the power of the internet and fire off countless calls with ease.

Both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) say they are doing their best to get a handle on the situation, and there have been significant crackdowns. But real-world feedback indicates that things are getting worse, and it can often feel out of control. The FCC has required that United States carriers adopt a technology that will go a long way toward combatting spam calls.

You can block spam calls by silencing all unknown callers on your phone and installing spam-filtering apps.

Block individual numbers one by one is probably a hopeless endeavor if you are aiming to completely eradicate robocalls, but if there is a particular number that keeps calling, it is fairly easy to block it forever from your iPhone or Android phone. On iOS, just go to the Phone app, then your Recents, tap the blue information icon to the right of the number you want to block, and select “Block this Caller”. For Android, the process is not much different, go to the Recents section of the Phone app, long press on the bothersome number, and choose “Block”.

Again, this will take a lot of persistent work on your part to keep the spammers away, and it does no good against blocked or private callers. Most of the major mobile providers have taken steps to insert themselves as a barrier between you and these annoying callers. They have done this through behind-the-scenes network improvements, including the SHAKEN/STIR technology that has started making it possible for carriers to verify when a call is legitimate and weed out the many spoofed numbers you are probably getting from your own local area code.

In reality, those calls are probably coming from across the globe, but it is easy for robocallers to impersonate local numbers. All of the major United States carriers offer some level of spam blocking for free as part of your wireless plan. AT&T has a free service, Call Protect, that is designed to block fraudulent robocalls and likely spam risks before they reach you, and you will not have to do anything besides install the software on your phone.

Call Protect will not completely stop telemarketer calls, but it will at least display a nuisance warning when you receive those.

The service also makes it easy to permanently block callers, and you can build a personal block list. There is also a Call Protect Plus service that offers caller ID, reverse number lookup, and the ability to block or send calls to voicemail by category. These added features cost $3.99 per month, but the main Call Protect service comes free as part of your plan.

Call Protect is also available to prepaid customers if they own an AT&T HD Voice-capable phone. T-Mobile’s effort to combat annoying robocalls is called Scam Shield. The free-to-download Scam Shield app bundles all of T-Mobile’s various tools so you can easily configure whatever level of protection is right for you. By default, suspicious calls are always flagged.

Enabling Scam Block will prevent many of them from ever ringing your phone. And T-Mobile’s Caller ID service will frequently show the information for whoever is calling you, even if they are not in your contacts. You can always turn on Scam Block without the Scam Shield app. To do so, dial #662# from your T-Mobile phone. To disable it, just dial #632#.

Scam Shield goes beyond just blocking bad calls, you can also request a secondary proxy number that you can use in instances where you do not want to share your private phone number.

And if you find yourself hopelessly inundated, T-Mobile will let you change your actual number once per year for free. For an added $4 per month per line, you can upgrade to Scam Shield Premium, which lets you send entire categories of unwanted robocalls directly to voicemail. Customers with Magenta Max plans get Scam Shield Premium for free. Verizon’s Call Filter service, free for postpaid lines, allows customers to get alerts when a call is likely spam, report unsolicited numbers, and automatically block robocalls based on their preferred level of risk.

For no charge, you can block up to five phone numbers that you want to prevent from contacting you. However, blocks expire after 90 days and are not very helpful against robocallers with numbers that change every day. You can get more features, such as the ability to create a personal block list, for $2.99 a month per line. The Verizon Smart Family plan offers additional features, including parental controls and the ability to permanently block as many as ten numbers, for $4.99 a month.

There are a number of services, such as Nomorobo, RoboKiller, and Hiya, that are designed to prevent robocalls from ever ringing your phone. Most of them require a subscription. At their core, these services rely on a constantly updating list of robocallers, spammers, and fraudsters and use that database to stop nuisance calls. A call comes in, and the service runs it against that huge list of scam numbers.

If it finds a match, the incoming call gets shut down before it reaches you.

All of them allow you to maintain your own personal blacklist of numbers that might be bothering you and whitelist those you want to get through. Some work by downloading a dedicated contacts list to your phone. But both iOS and Android have recently given these services more leeway in taking control over your phone app and stopping the robocalls from ever reaching you.

On iPhone, you will have to enable them in the Settings app and give them caller ID permissions before they can start working. All of them are largely well-reviewed by customers, and all offer free trials to get started. One of these will ultimately be what you need to really fight back against the robocalls. It is just a matter of finding your favorite.

Many Android phones including those from Samsung and Google have built-in options for flagging suspected spam calls. If you have got a Google Pixel device, the entire screen will turn red when a spammer rings you, which is an easy way of knowing to ignore the call if you are across the room from your phone. On Pixel phones, you can also tap the three dots in the upper right corner of the Phone app and then go to Settings > Caller ID & spam.

You can then see spam IDs and filter spam calls.

Other phones will have similar features. iOS introduced its own app called Silence Unknown Callers, which blocks any callers that are not in your contact list, have not been in contact with, or have not texted. Instead, those calls will go straight to voicemail. You can enable it by selecting Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers. Use Do Not Disturb to only allow calls from your contacts.

On both Android and iOS, you can set each operating system’s Do Not Disturb mode to allow phone calls from only those people and businesses in your contacts list. This is a pretty drastic, sledgehammer solution to the problem of robocalls, and you are almost certain to miss calls that you would have liked to have answered. But those calls will go through to voicemail, and then you can add that number to your contacts for the future.

Only take this option if you are completely fed up, and only if you are very good and meticulous about keeping contacts up to date. Scammers think that a number matching your area code will trick your brain and make you more likely to answer, and it makes their deception feel even more nefarious. Robocall blocker apps have gotten better at spotting neighborhood spoofing.

Never let the robots know you are a real human.

Tempting as it might be to swear up and down at a robocaller or scammer, your best course of action is to leave them unsure as to whether they connected with an actual person. If you accidentally answer a spam call, scammers know your number is connected to a real person and can target you with more spam calls. These targeted spam calls will try to trick you into giving up your personal information which allows cybercriminals to steal your money, your identity, and even your voice.

You should avoid answering spam calls to help prevent cybercriminals from trying to steal your personal information. Do not say anything. Do not push buttons even if the robotic voice says doing so will prevent further calls. Put no faith or trust in the robot voice. Either just let it go through to voicemail or hang up immediately if you mistakenly picked up.